


can't help thinkin' that I love it still

by charleybradburies



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bards, Blood Magic, Body Dysphoria, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends, Estrangement, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Family, Fate & Destiny, Feelings Realization, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Hurt/Comfort, Identity, Identity Reveal, Jaskier | Dandelion Has a Past, Jealousy, M/M, Magic, Masturbation, Mild Sexual Content, Name Changes, Nightmares, Not Canon Compliant, Origin Story, POV Jaskier | Dandelion, Parent-Child Relationship, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Queer Themes, Secrets, Sex Change, Sorcerers, Time Skips, Trans Character, Trans Jaskier | Dandelion, Trans Male Character, Transformation, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:48:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22660519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: The person Jaskier used to be has long been buried, but life doesn't always go as planned.Cause you know the truth hurts, but secrets kill / can't help thinkin' that I love it still, still here, there must be something real / cause you know the good die young, but so did this, and so it must be better than I think it isHalsey - HopelessWork and chapter titles are from Halsey songs.[Disclaimer: While I've used key points of my own identity discovery as a person under the "trans umbrella" to develop this backstory and have tried to handle this with gentle hands, I'm not a trans man and can't directly speak to that experience. I also tried to use as much in-universe material as I could to facilitate this story, and to make that accurate to how transition might work in the universe.]
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 157





	1. take a different version and I try it on for size

**Author's Note:**

> Please kudos and/or comment if you feel inclined!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from "3am."

Little Julianna Frida Pankratz, viscountess by birth in Kerack, the first child of a loving noble couple, is a beloved and eagerly welcomed child. 

She's well-tended and as well-educated as young noble girls go, and wonderful in her pursuits. She takes to the arts like a fish to water, finding joy in painting, poetry, singing, and in all instruments she's offered, though favoring those which work best as accompaniment to a voice. 

She presses flowers in notebooks, dotes on younger siblings Bernardyn and Felipa, learns an admirable but still lady-appropriate amount of skill with a sabre at her father's insistence, and develops as much a talent for mending clothing as she does for finding trouble that necessitates it. (Too often, it finds her, drawn to her as though her charisma and desire for adventure were a beacon.)

~~

At twelve, she dons a short-haired wig intended for theatre and clothing secretly borrowed from her brother to steal away to dance at a tavern with a pretty girl - and Julian has the time of his life, showing the little viscountess a part of herself she's been missing.

~~

By fourteen, Julian's had two dozen more private adventures, adventures described only in unrhymed poetry hidden in the pages of notebooks no one else ever sees - horseback rides and serenades and kisses with people who don't know him as a girl with a vielle who twirled around in bulky, shimmering dresses. 

~~

By fifteen, Julianna's insisted so passionately on leaving for university that she's allowed to go. Her parents send off their firstborn girl for studies, and it's Julian Alfred who arrives in the _city_ of Oxenfurt to begin a new life, separate from Viscountess Julianna.

Julian blends in as a tavern performer, and Julianna excels in instruction and builds friendships with other students. Despite their _very_ similar artistic interests, their lives don't overlap throughout their year spent in the area, except when people try to charm Julian and he needs to draw back as covertly as possible. He's charming, if secretive, and passionate, if easily bored, and sometimes it serves as an advantage. 

By the time Julianna is bored enough with her classes to decide to leave, she feels like a lie, like a role Julian is playing, one for which he gets no applause.

Kind professor Oliwier offers both an ear and access to his personal literary collection, and she does her best to take him up on those. When she leaves Oxenfurt, Julian privately in tow until the outside of the city, he gives her one of his books about magic, and it becomes one of Julian's prized possessions. 

~~

Julian is the one who travels, in part because it's safer as a young man than as a woman and in part because he simply feels more...comfortable, more _right_. The fancier doublets cover small breasts well, prettily-tousled brown hair looks good trimmed, and natural charm combined with an instrument can bring food and coin in a tavern - although that's hit or miss for a few months, as he tests out which songs might be best to perform where. 

He has a few close calls with almost-lovers, deeply desirous of something that resembles real intimacy and yet restricted by a body he feels rather separate from. He settles for pretending the ache inside belongs to a completely separate noblewoman, even though he's the one who feels the peak when Julianna's very feminine needs are met. 

~~

He's sixteen, about to turn seventeen, when his professor's gift lets him read about magical transformations, those of sorcerers and witchers and people with desperation and something to give, who sacrifice something and endure even more and emerge with new bodies.

His monthly blood ruins a favorite pair of breeches in the middle of the night, and he realizes that he's one of those people.

~~

After a few difficult months of being seventeen, Julian finds a sorcerer he's able to charm his way into friendship with, a Ban Ard man he convinces to provide the service of a great change. 

He's gotten in some fights, broken some bones, and had some debilitating monthly cycles, but the warning that the process of transformation as wrought by magic will be much, much worse still doesn't stop him. 

It is indeed much, _much_ worse, but he comes away from the searing, bone-deep pain as a whole man, a young man with a life ahead of him, of travel and song and love, and he tells himself it's worth it. The possibility of children in his future, and the scarring on his pubic area and where his arms struggled against the necessary restraints, are a small price for a body that's truly his. 

The sorcerer recommends he really reinvent himself, a new life for a new body, and he takes some of that to heart, shedding the role of an heir of Kerack with as clean a cut as he can manage. 

~~

Jaskier is a bright yellow flower blooming from cracks in a castle floor despite attempts against him - a traveling bard, seeker of adventures, stories, and romance, born a new man at the age of seventeen, without the responsibility of a family name.

He carries forward a fondness for nice things, indulging in fancifully-made clothing and alcohol more often than not, with the newfound freedom he gets in no longer having to hide what's underneath.

He travels from town to town, sings songs written of his own vivid imagination, and falls in love many times over, and writes home to his mother - _Julianna's_ mother - about some of it, as he can't entirely separate from her affection and interest. 

He advises her not to write back, for it's likely he won't receive the letters.


	2. when the hand you want to hold is a weapon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from "Grayeyard."

Jaskier is eighteen when he meets Geralt of Rivia, who's nestled in a corner as Jaskier is performing and quickly catches his eye - first for looking both imposing and attractive, and second because he's a witcher. The first contract that Jaskier shoves his way into - because he _needs_ the story, the real story, for a song that's actually more truth than embellishment - follows soon after, to the witcher's chagrin. 

Geralt is vocal about his displeasure and not much else, but he doesn't actually _make_ Jaskier go away.

So Jaskier doesn't. 

~~

Jaskier's twentieth birthday passes while he's nursing an injury of Geralt's in an inn. 

He likes to think they're friends by now; even though Geralt continues to grumble that he doesn't want to _have_ any friends, it runs counter to how he treats Jaskier, how he's started to assume - correctly - that Jaskier's going to want to get the stories of the contracts he's had since their last interactions and then accompany him on more. 

He complains about taking care of Jaskier, but still does so, often without asking, and complains about getting taken care of, and yet he lets Jaskier care for him in return. Jaskier's developed a fair number of relationships of varying sorts, but nothing quite like theirs. 

~~

He's twenty-one when he's first invited to perform at a court, something asked of him in Vergen after he's recognized as the bard spreading good word of Geralt. It's been some time since he's knowingly performed before nobility, but he takes swiftly to it again, regaling the crowd with an energetic manner he's grown into.

~~

The second court performance, he's twenty-three, and he meets a countess he believes must be the most beautiful woman in the world. She's enchanted by his songs and very willing to serve as a muse, and he writes his first song about her the following morning, after their meeting and first coupling. 

She's the first lover whose fingers linger truly tenderly on the scars his transformation had left on him, but he shakes his head and she doesn't ask what they came from. 

~~

At twenty-four, he hears news of his brother's marriage, sitting in a tavern in Caingorn in between two songs he's performing. He hasn't written home in five years, and he wonders what they assume has become of their Julianna Pankratz.

~~

He's twenty-five, with over half a dozen well-known songs, three of which are romantic tunes about his Countess de Stael, when he realizes their on again, off again situation doesn't serve either of them. 

He's laying out under the stars, half-listening to Geralt's not-quite-audible whispers to Roach and the little whinnies and huffs she gives him in return, and he wonders when he learned to be as happy out in the woods with them as he is in a proper place of residence. 

~~

He's newly twenty-seven when Geralt decides to tell him that he knows Jaskier thinks about him when he masturbates, and a week older than that when he, surprisingly successfully, entreats the witcher to fuck him instead. 

Geralt's covered in scars of his own, and Jaskier's neither compare nor get mentioned. 

Jaskier isn't sure how to bring up the concept of defining their relationship, and Geralt certainly doesn't raise the matter, nor does he give the impression he particularly cares to bed the bard again. Jaskier stuffs the emotions around it down until he finds a way to put in a song that's not quite so personal. 

~~

Jaskier is twenty-eight, officially split, once and for all, from his beloved countess, and he finds his only other consistent companion by a lake just outside Rinde. Something of a far too harsh quarrel results in Jaskier coughing up blood, ill with a magical cause, trying not to feel either his throat or pelvis burst him apart at his seams.

Geralt saves him, of course, because he saves people, and part of that is meeting a beautiful, terrifying sorceress. 

She's saved Jaskier, but still makes his skin crawl. Geralt, on the other hand, fucks this _Yennefer of Vengerberg_ in a collapsed building, before he's even confirmed that Jaskier remains alive, the precise reason he knows of the woman's existence. 

Jaskier stuffs down his hurt again. 

~~

He's a few weeks older, shaken awake by a very concerned Geralt for what he thinks is the first time. In his mind's eye he pictures himself years younger, an apparent woman, strapped and chained into a table, blood from inside her covering much of her body as she writhes in pain, and then Roach neighs a neigh that sounds worried, and Jaskier manages to sit up. 

He falls back asleep cradled in Geralt's arms. 

The next time he has a nightmare, Geralt pulls him close without fully waking him, and he settles then, too, as though the fear was a monster the witcher chased away. 

~~

He's thirty, both he and Geralt injured by a fiend they'd needed to fight together - "loud noises are your best weapon, bard," had come the suggestion at first - when a mention of his transformation slips out. 

Geralt is fussing, angry that he'd admitted he needed help as though he had all the power in the world to keep Jaskier from ever being hurt, and Jaskier gives the shitty attempt at comfort of, "I've had worse, a lot worse." 

By the time he realizes he's said it, it's too late to make it a joke, and Geralt's hands have already stilled at Jaskier's shoulder, where they're nimbly sewing up the largest cut. He's already had to bite his tongue not to say he wishes he'd feel those hands on him in a _distinctly different_ sort of circumstance.

"I know you have," Geralt replies, conveying it with a weight that implies he really does. "Doesn't mean I have an excuse to let you get injured."


	3. his hands so cold they shake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from "Coming Down."

Geralt isn't keen on forcing Jaskier to talk - let alone more than he does with no urging at all - so even with mentions of his past as someone other than himself having slipped out, Jaskier makes it to the age of thirty-one without it surfacing as a topic again. 

They've reunited with _Yennefer_ and Jaskier can't quite manage to hate her enough to let her be alone with Geralt for some uncertain amount of time, so he doesn't stay back from the mission. One night, he's somehow kept up with their fireside drinking and the sorceress's gaze has softened enough for him to be a more active participant in their conversation; his ears aren't deaf when the questions about Kaer Morhen arise - between Yennefer, and Jaskier who tags along, Geralt actually cares enough to answer queries. 

It's talk about childhood that draws Jaskier to a slightly more sober state. 

Geralt's was little more than _peppered_ with goodness - as much as he cares for those he bonded with then - and tonight Jaskier learns that Yennefer's was much the same. She, of course, is the one to remark that he's shared considerably less than expected, that it would be fair for her to know about him just as he now knows about her being sold like chattel, which is _horribly_ sympathetic backstory information to have.

Geralt, for what it's worth, gives her a look that Jaskier appreciates, a look telling her not to press it. 

"Ah, yes, yours was terrible, too," she states quite casually, then, as she's tossing back another of her colored alcohols.

The thing is, he cannot agree and declare that, not even in _bad_ faith. He still has a caring mother he loves, even if he may not be her daughter anymore; he still has much of the rest of his family, a family that had supported the person as whom he'd begun his life. And even if there's a sadness that coats his recollection of that life, it wasn't that it was _bad_ , just that he'd realized it wasn't _his_. 

"You hated it enough to change your body so you could leave it behind, after all," she adds, and this time Geralt presses harder, a warning " _Yen_ ," perhaps predicting the immediate, fearful shift in Jaskier. She does little more than raise her brow at the witcher, barely noting Jaskier's reactions. 

"You don't _have_ to talk, but I've seen your scarring. I get it." 

Jaskier breaks out of his fear to scoff at that, if only because the terror would otherwise devour him. He'd gone a decade - which he supposes is like a blink of an eye to her and Geralt, but to a human, and one still fairly young, it was quite a long chunk of time - without having to explain. He'd had quite possibly _countless_ bedmates, and now this _witch_ , this almost-rival, this...

"Nobility, in Kerack. Not much bad about it, no."

"Bastardy?" Yennefer asks, confusion written on her face, and part of Jaskier enjoys causing that for her. He shakes his head.

"You gave up power for...roughing it with a witcher?" She doesn't sound like she's trying to offend, only sate her curiosity, and still Geralt protects the bard with "you haven't been complaining," since her presence on this mission has come rather similarly, what with her using her ability for sway over people to rise up any ranks within which she finds herself, and yet choosing to accompany the witcher and the bard on this particular contract.

She looks at Geralt with a thoughtful thin-lipped smile, like he knows the answers she seeks and might give them were she to determine the right price, and Jaskier declares it's time for the human among them to get some sleep, pushing himself up from his place around the fire.

Yennefer has a tent separate from theirs, and Jaskier basks in an unfair happiness when Geralt still joins him - their bedrolls right next each other, because as he explains to the not-yet-asleep bard, humans freeze too easily, and Geralt is responsible for this nightmare-prone one. 

But when a nightmare does wake Jaskier, Geralt's arm is already curled around him, and his cock's hard against the bard's back. And that's a perfectly fine way to wake, Jaskier reasons - one worth putting up with Yennefer, in fact. Even if nothing else comes of it.

~~

Jaskier is thirty-three when Geralt realizes the bard's more recent love songs are about _him_.

In an unexpected twist, Geralt's drawn into explaining that his retreat after they'd lain together was because he'd worried he was too harsh, too forward, too _much_. 

The witcher doesn't expect to hear that he could _never_ be too much for Jaskier, nor to be kissed with both urgency and softness, but he seems to anticipate the myriad praises Jaskier offers up as they explore each other. It's slower, sweeter, _loving_ , this time.

Geralt kisses and touches Jaskier's scars, and doesn't ask about them. 

Jaskier realizes he'd consider answering honestly if he did.

He curls into the witcher's chest when they go to sleep, facing him this time and giving a good night kiss, and sleeps soundly, with safety and warm arms surrounding him.

~~

He's thirty-four when Yennefer somehow comes by some particular knowledge she'd previously been denied, and portals to the town they're in just to neg Geralt into admitting that yes, he and Jaskier had been at the notorious betrothal feast of the Cintran princess and queen a few years back, and yes, Princess Pavetta had expelled chaotic magic there, and yes, Geralt had invoked the same law of surprise her future husband had, and bound himself to little Princess Cirilla whose existence, _yes_ , was the reason he had stopped taking contracts in Cintra.

It doesn't really _change_ anything, of course, other than Yennefer being increasingly involved in their lives. He supposes that's what fate does, but he doesn't have to like it, even if her help can be useful.

If she realizes that they're clearly sharing the bed in their room or that the room smells like sex, she decides against mentioning it.

But maybe she does have a grin that's just a little too _knowing_ when she leaves.

~~

The winter of Jaskier's thirty-fifth year is the first he gets to spend at Kaer Morhen. He's more well-accepted than he expects beforehand, if only because the other witchers are family to Geralt, and _revel_ in the opportunity that Jaskier gives them to tease him - about his popularity, about what Vesemir calls his shenanigans, about _falling in love_ and with a _human_.

And while even Jaskier can pick up the same sort of embarrassment any grown child might feel in his family's presence, under their eyes, Geralt takes all their commentary in stride. 

Jaskier always enjoys watching Geralt at work, but getting to watch him sparring with his brothers brings him a whole new appreciation.

It's Vesemir who informs Jaskier that the keep's walls are, unfortunately, thin.

~~

Jaskier is thirty-eight when time looks like it's run out.

He's performing in a town square, gleefully singing more _with_ the children in the crowd than _to_ them, the adults around singing gently if at all, with Geralt watching from nearby, next to Roach where she's tethered. There's not enough space or money here for her to be in a stable, but Geralt had promised the desperate townsfolk she won't mind, and Jaskier didn't miss him telling her to behave herself. (She'd huffed at him, returning the demand.)

Jaskier - and the children - are in the middle of one of his vibrant love songs when a dignified party rides up, declaring before even seeing Geralt that they'd been given information that the great witcher of Rivia was sheltered herein. 

A couple of the town's men reach for their swords, and Jaskier's heart sings, though his mouth ceases. He lowers his lute, and one of the littlest girls runs into his side, cuddling into his leg, touch he accepts by letting his hand settle at her neck.

He's not particularly suited to comfort her, though, when he sees the banner of the now-dismounting party and the sigil upon the armor of the man Geralt approaches, who appears to be in charge. 

Julianna had begun evading that blue dolphin swimming on gold more than twenty years past, and it hadn't caught up with Jaskier yet, until now. Until Geralt looks expectantly at the leader and is brought a scroll. 

"Lot of fanfare for a contract," he muses flatly whilst reading it.

"My lord would disagree," the other man answers. 

"Good for him."

"You're a hard man to find, _witcher._ "

"And yet, here you are."

The man makes the bold decision to damn near ignore the displeasure Geralt isn't really hiding under his polite-enough pretense.

"When can I advise my lord you and your company will be arriving?"

Jaskier is surprised that the little girl hugging him doesn't ask if he's all right after that, for his heart is surely beating faster than anyone's here. Geralt gets a bit closer to the man, but he raises his voice.

" _Advise_ your lord that neither my presence nor my _companion's_ can be demanded. When the problems I can solve in our present location are resolved, I'll consider the request."

His words are blunt and his voice harsh. He rolls the scroll back up, and turns his back, going to put the scroll in one of Roach's saddlebags both to show that the request is tabled for later and to show that he's still armed. 

The other man visibly purses his lips, thinking of his options. There weren't many nobles in Kerack, but none of them would take a refusal well, even a tentative one. 

If it were the Pankratz family, though? Especially if they had any idea of who Jaskier might be? They'd have the two of them hunted. Not with _intent_ to harm, not particularly - not Jaskier, at least, if his mother recalled him stating that _Julian_ the adventurer had met and travelled with a witcher. Still, they wouldn't feel all that terrible if an attempt to bring Julianna home meant that all _hell_ broke loose.

Perhaps, though, this messenger party means it's already begun to break.


End file.
